Carla Borba

“7 cabeças” [7 heads], 2003 -2018
Synopsis:
Protest performance set up as a collaborative platform on art, politics and gender issues. A group of women share moments together playing the children’s game “Slaves of Job”. The participants stamp papers, read and debate critical texts and drink cachaça while playing and singing. They read news and share testimonies about the life of women in contemporary society, switching songs and changing the rhythm of the action. The public is invited to share personal testimonies and join the game.

The work combines debate, performance and rituals with the aim to literally put on the table discussions about gender issues in art and its social and political implications. The rules of the game are changed and subverted by playfulness and laughter – brought up by the act of drinking cachaça –, which turns the game into an experience of subjectivation.

7 heads has been presented since 2003. Its first editions took place in France (2003-2005) and later in Brazil (2009-2018). Each performance incorporates specific local issues: in the first presentation (2003) immigrant women (legal and illegal residents) of different nationalities joined the game at the European Social Forum in Paris. In 2005 during the celebration of Brazil’s Cultural Year in France the performance approached stereotypes related to Brazilian women. Four years later in Porto Alegre (Brazil) friends, artists and culture workers joined the event to discuss the role of women in the art system. From 2015-2018 the performance approached issues which affect women daily: domestic violence, black women’s loneliness, wage inequality, abortion, moral abuse, among others.

“Partituras de um duelo” [scores of a duel], 2018
Synopsis:
A confrontation of two performers who use different materials, tools, appliances and symbols such as sand, bricks, sledgehammer, water, fire, vacuum cleaner, red acetate molds in format of  a penis, plaster pieces of “the king of chess”, metal mold of a cliché image of a heart and oriental paper roll stamped with an image of the work O impossível [ The impossible] by Brazilian artist Maria Martins.

With the children’s play “rock-paper-scissors” as a starting point, the performance becomes a playful space of dispute to discuss the logic of winners vs losers, strong vs weak and power relations of gender confrontations.

Each round the female warriors/players create a kind of musical score with their bodies and installations based on the choice of elements and objects available to play the game. A field of practical-theoretical experience on violence, power and polarities of patriarchal society is created in battles like sand vs vacuum cleaner, brick vs hammer, paper vs water and cotton vs fire. 

“Espaço de conflito” [Space of conflict], 2016-2018
Synopsis:
Espaço de conflito [Space of conflict] discusses the gesture of breathing and its poetic relations as a political act. The action aims to connect individuals and the inner and outer spaces. The expression “space of conflict” printed on the balloons remind the artist and the audience of the constant presence of conflict. The colorful balloons on the floor twist the artistic experience, offering an invitation to a spontaneous play while imposing chaos through the sound of their burst. Led by current political and social events in Brazil, the work proposes an experience of simultaneity between introspection/silence and uprising/confrontation.

The work is an invitation to the act of filling balloons in which the audience read the sentence “Space of conflict”. The balloons are available with the following instructions: “Inhale and release the air in your chest. Fill the balloon. Tie it up and let it go. You can fill as many as you can.”

Performance realized during the solo exhibition POLARES, Galeria Aura, São Paulo, Brazil (2018); and the collective shows FALA – uma exposição Reação, Fundação Ecarta, Porto Alegre, Brazil (2017); Expressões do Múltiplo, Pinacoteca Barão de Santo Ângelo – UFRGS, Porto Alegre, Brazil (2017); Vira lattes, Galeria de Arte e Pesquisa –  UFES, Vitória, Brazil (2016); Circuito de Performance, Galeria Península, Porto Alegre, Brazil (2016).

“O que você tem a dizer”” [What do you have to say], 2017-2018
Synopsis:
Based on several reports of harassment which became viral in social networks during 2015, the performance aims to discuss child and adolescent abuse suffered by women. 

The artist writes with a pyrograph (Greek word that means “writing plus fire”) on a paper while reading aloud stories and memories of abuse. At certain moments the artist increases the power of the pyrograph causing the fast burning of the thin sheets. Throughout the action the question “What do you have to say” is constantly repeated.

Ongoing performance which took place during the exhibitions Mulhere-se, Sesc Itaquera, São Paulo, Brazil (2018); and Projeto Instauração, Sesc Belezinho, São Paulo, Brazil (2017).

“Geocarnívora” [Geocarnivorous], 2011-2017
Synopsis:
Geocarnívora [Geocarnivorous] ironically proposes the tasting of an exploited and violated nation. The artist cooks “meat dumplings” from a piece of beef (which has the format of Brazil’s map), while reporting different territorial, environmental and social impacts of Brazilian territory exploration: criminal environmental disasters, agribusiness, deforestation, etc. Ongoing performance which took place in Convergência – Mostra de Performance, Sesc Tocantins, Palmas, Brazil (2017); and Projeto DUETO, Casa M – 8th Mercosul Biennial, Porto Alegre, Brazil (2011).

“Apanhador de vento” [catching the wind ], 2016
Synopsis:
Produced by artists Carla Borba and Rubiane Maia, Apanhador de vento [catching the wind ] is the result of an experience lived during an artistic residence promoted by Galeria Península (Porto Alegre, Brazil). The artists traveled eight days in the countryside of Rio Grande do Sul visiting cities such as Rio Grande, São José do Norte, Tavares, Mostardas and Porto Alegre – an extension of land, sand and roads located between the Brazilian coast and Lagoa dos Patos. A flat place where undergrowth and dunes predominate, the wind takes shape and horizontality fuses with verticality. A landscape with an infinite horizon blown by the polar minuano wind which comes intensely from southeast.

The action took place in the National Park of Lagoa do Peixe and involved the manipulation of an 80 meters guard rail netting. The video presents actions developed by the artists (individually and as a pair) aiming to “capture” the wind. Earnest and methodical, the artists wore an orange safety-vest and transformed the poetic act of catching the wind in a technical and sometimes playful procedure. The audience can see the enormous physical effort of the artist-workers in contact with the intensity of the wind, which imposes its strength, supremacy and power against the somehow insane attempt of contact and connection with nature.

“Corte” [Cut], 2010
Synopsis:
Series of collages made from images of old works. From the cut of two or three photographs, an image is produced. Afternoons with scissors in hand in order to make organic and geometric cuts, a result of compulsive gestures with scissors and guillotine. The cuts become fast and dry. The wish to remember and forget is present, while the images are cut in pieces, creating a relation between past and future. Loss and encounter are experienced at the same time.